Product Description

1950 - Seven year old Carol Martin lies encased in an iron lung, struck down by the killer disease, polio. Distraught at her side, her mother, Violet, wonders if this is her punishment - for Carol is the love child who should not have been born....

Family of Women is the story of three generations of women:

Bessie: scarred by a childhood of poverty in the slums of Victorian Birmingham and left a young widow with four children, is a hard, bullying woman who will go to disturbing lengths to keep her family under her thumb.

Violet: one of Bessie’s four children, marries young to escape, into the arms of a man whose life will be broken by war,

Linda: grows up on a large housing estate in the 1950s with older sister Joyce and her beloved young sister Carol. Intelligent and energetic, she craves education and something more than the life she sees around her. Torn from her longed for place at the grammar school, she gives up hoping for anything better. It takes a tragic love affair to make her question the limitations of her life and the secrets which haunt her family.

Spanning more than half of the last century, Family of Women is a story of one family - and of the joys, struggles and changes in women’s lives.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #75202 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 520 pages

About the Author

Annie Murray was born in Berkshire and now lives in Reading with her husband and four children. She read English at Oxford, and her first 'Birmingham' novel, Birmingham Rose, hit the Times bests eller list when it was published in 1995. She has subsequently written eight other successful novels, all published by Pan Macmillan, including, most recently, Miss Purdy's Class.

Customer Reviews

A Brilliant Read
Annie Murray's latest book has to be the best so far, from the first page you are drawn into a world long gone but none the last still within living memory. A story of love, happiness, betrayal and hardships. The author paints a vivid picture of how strong the women had to be to overcome their trials and tribulations to win through for their families against all odds.
She tells how the family depends on the women, who despite having little or no money still managed to get by and through sheer hard work raise their families in slum conditions, no easy job, the women had to be strong to survive. Annie Murray manages to convey the message that then money was not the most important factor in their lives, necessary yes of course but the major theme to me was the love women had for their families and would sacrifice all if need be. A haunting book that I will never forget.

Family of Women
I was unable to put this book down and had read it within two days! As with all Annie Murray titles the area the story is set in an area that I can relate to. Although set in Birmingham women from anywhere can relate to the characters.
I find that the chapters are short so you just keep going wanting to find out what happened next. Family of Women is about three generations of strong minded women the problems in life that they encounter and how they cope with them.

A reader from West Midlands.

Compelling Read
A wonderful book, I am not going to reiterate and repeat what others have put in their reviews as their comments are an excellent guide as to what the book is about. I did decide to write something different as to how the book affected me. Again,as in all Annie Murray's novels she writes with such depth about the lives of her characters you feel you really know them. For me this book brings back many memories of a mother/matriarch who tries to dominate and rule her family. Her family almost afraid of her, I wanted to shout at the characters and tell them to tell her what to do with herself. She is however, not the main character of the book and the story line has so much more to offer than this. Like all of the Author's books I just could not put it down until I finished reading it. I also believe that some of her books like this one would make a wonderful drama on TV.